In mid-August, an under-construction Staten Island home was ransacked of its copper piping. Builder John Galarza said, "They did $16,000 [of damage] to collect a thousand to 12 hundred (dollars)," and offered a $5,000 reward. Another house was robbed of its copper (its builder suspects the thief knows "plumbing, because they did a clean job of taking it off"), and Galarza raised the reward to $10,000. Copper thefts aren't new--the Greenpoint Warehouse Terminal fire was allegedly started by a homeless copper thief--but now construction sites are being targeted more often. A third S.I. builder whose sites have been plundered said, "I wish [thieves] had touched one of the valves when it had 350 pounds of pressure on it. That would've been a nice little surprise."




copper caper
If a thief had touched one of the valves when it had 350 pounds of pressure on it, they would probably sue the builder (assuming they survived) for not properly dealing with the trespassing and not having a proper notice that the valve was pressurized.
Good one Toby!